Indigenous research and practice create new partnerships

Beside her, Harvard forest ecologist Neil Pederson nodded. The duo’s research on red-tailed hawks in the eastern United States is one of a handful of examples of prominent institutions in Massachusetts combining their own research strategies with indigenous knowledge to better protect fragile ecosystems from the effects of climate change.

In addition to grants to Native people and research partnerships at universities including Harvard and MIT, state climate officials are also providing funding to municipal governments and local tribes, such as the Wampanoag in Mashpee and the Mohicans in Stockbridge, to address ecological challenges in their region. From reversing harmful algal blooms in wetlands to combating invasive species in forests, there is a growing understanding among policymakers and researchers that working with Native tribes is crucial to the overall health of the ecosystem.

“Tribal land management is a critical part of how we look at climate resilience,” said Oleander Stone, deputy director of climate equity and environmental justice for the state. “Land management is so much more than how we deal with invasive species. It’s about building relationships: how we build relationships with the land and how we build relationships with our past to build a more resilient future.”

Lawrence, who previously worked in the subarctic with a Canadian research center that facilitates collaboration between government scientists and the region’s indigenous peoples, said the tribal perspective has much to offer academic researchers. For example, plants and animals are considered family members, called grandparents or cousins, which Lawrence said makes addressing their legacy feel both more personal and urgent.

As part of her research, Lawrence has conducted dozens of studies to understand where red-shouldered hawks travel and what causes them to die. Unlike Western scientists who might follow a rigid set of research instructions, Lawrence said her research is often driven by an instinctive connection to the bird.

“I once had to suddenly stop in the fast lane (to pick up a dead hawk),” she said. “I thought I saw a relative! I had to!”

Lawrence said she recently found seven dead red-shouldered hawks during a drive — all of them juveniles.

“The fact that there has been such a decline means that there are definitely other things (in the ecosystem) changing that we haven’t noticed yet, and that’s scary,” she said.

As top predators, hawks play a key role in maintaining predator-prey relationships in forests by controlling the population of small mammals and preventing smaller animals from leaving their native habitats and further disrupting the ecosystem.

Lawrence said she has observed 86 dead hawks in the region between Massachusetts and Albany in the past two years, only one of which has reached maturity. In some cases, it is clear that the bird was hit by a car. In other cases, Lawrence said, she has found birds that appear completely intact and apparently healthy, except for eyes that have exploded. These cases, which she believes are the result of pesticides and rodenticides building up in the hawk’s bloodstream over time, are even more disturbing.

“These things aren’t just phenomena,” she said. “At some point, they become a pattern.”

Pederson, an ecologist who has studied the effects of climate change on forests in the eastern United States for more than three decades, said he is eager to share his knowledge with others through the Harvard Forest research project to better understand indigenous peoples’ approaches to ecology.

Both Lawrence and Pederson noted that while While Western tradition has historically treated this symptom—for example, by trying to increase the population of squirrels or rabbits in the hawk’s habitat because that is its primary food source—the indigenous approach looks more broadly at the entire ecosystem as a family network: Could it be that the problem is not really the hawk’s food source, but the trees in which it likes to nest? Or if If fewer rabbits, why? Has something happened to the grasses they usually eat? Has any disease affected them? If so, where did it come from and is it also affecting squirrels and mice?

“That’s why the Indigenous perspective is so important,” Lawrence said.

Through the state’s Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program, officials have awarded tribes millions of dollars in grants for land protection and restoration work over the past three years.

In Mashpee, for example, the city’s Natural Resources Department is working with the Wampanoag Tribe to get guidance on how to redirect stormwater runoff that’s causing toxic algae blooms in Santuit Pond that have been killing local wildlife. The city initially tried to disperse the bacteria with a solar-powered pump. When that failed, officials turned to nature-based solutions with the Wampanoag Tribe, which have proven effective so far.

And last year, the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican band, many of whom were relocated from western Massachusetts to Wisconsin centuries ago, received more than $2 million from the state to buy about 350 acres of native lands and develop a land-management plan.

Randall Wollenhaup, the tribe’s ecology director, said he plans to conduct a full site survey, with a focus on invasive species that have arrived in recent years, to investigate “what species of trees are left and how do we restore the land to its natural state?”

Stockbridge Select Board member Patrick White said he believes Native land management strategies, which tend to favor the restoration of native plant species over the introduction of new ones, will be valuable tools for the city’s future forest conservation and restoration practices. The city is extremely grateful for the help, he added, especially when it comes to addressing the rapid decline of key tree species in the region, such as hemlock and ash.

“Western management of our natural resources is deeply flawed, and I’m just honored and humbled to learn everything we can to turn that around,” White said, “because every time I walk through those forests, I’m thrilled (to be there) but also sad to see what we’ve done to it.”

Back at Harvard Forest, as Pederson and Lawrence strayed from the main trail onto a smaller path, Lawrence said she wondered what was wrong with the red-tailed hawks’ primary food sources that had led the birds to hunt city rats or scavenge for dead animals on the side of highways. There were even documented cases of them eating other, younger red-tailed hawks, widely considered a “red flag and a cry for help,” she said.

As her research gains momentum, Lawrence is combining her own academic and Native backgrounds to better understand the hawksbill and its ecosystem. Even as she pushes for Native people to gain greater access to prominent research institutions that have historically excluded them, she also hopes for more mutually beneficial partnerships that incorporate Native wisdom into Western academic research at places like Harvard.

“There aren’t a lot of board-level decisions that are being made to support this work … but I hope that this can be a moment that tells the story of Indigenous people coming into these institutions,” she said, “and that all of these individual choices and partnerships (we’re building) build that sense of protocol.”

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Ivy Scott can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @itsivyscott.